Title - Laying of new lines:Railways rapped for tardy progress

New Delhi (PTI): A parliamentary committee has rapped the Railways for tardy progress in executing projects related to laying new lines. "Many MPs expressed their displeasure in the meeting over the slow pace of work in laying new lines, crucial for infrastructure development," a member of the Railway Convention Committee on condition of anonymity said.

Railway Convention Committee presided over by Odisha MP Arjun Charan Sethi examined the pending ongoing projects on Thursday.Railways have a total of 347 projects including new line, doubling and gauge conversion till April 2011. The cost escalation of these projects have gone up to Rs 1,47,187 crore.

Some projects are going on for the last 15 years with little progress as a result the cost escalation has gone up almost 200 times, said the MP.The 16-member committee examined the pending ongoing projects of railways in the country and its time and cost overrun effects. Blaming the Railways for his "casual" approach, he said "these are important projects and should be dealt with seriously".

Railways have completed 10,286 km of new line, gauge conversion and doubling projects during 2007-12, the 11th Five-Year Plan.Though Railways completed 709 km and 727 km of new line in 2010-11 and 2011-12 respectively, this is less than the target.Railways have maintained that the land acquisition, security issues, forestry clearances and paucity of funds are some of the issues which are reasons for the delay in executing projects.

The MP, however, said that all these issues should be tackled and should not be reasons for the delay and railways should evolve a mechanism to sort out problems with state governments because they are equally keen on implementation of these projects."We have taken a number of initiatives to expedite completion of these projects.

The initiatives include generating additional resources through non-budgetary measures like funding by state governments and other beneficiaries and execution of projects through Rail Vikas Nigam Limited on Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) basis," said a senior Railway Ministry official.